Don't sweat it, if you ever need to do something like that just Google SPDIF buffer or something like that. Tent Labs uses a simple circuit that reclocks and buffers SPDIF, I've used it several times, piece of cake.

Yes, I'm sure this has been answered before, but I can't find any good answers by searching. Sorry...

I've got a Lynx AES16 digital sound card with balanced AES/EBU inputs and outputs, and need to convert them to and from optical and coax S/PDIF. Circuits for balanced AES/EBU to coax S/PDIF are abundant, but I haven't found anything for optical. Anyone have anything up their sleeves?

sendler: No way, I'm going all out on the DIY My main goal is to build a good 10-channel DAC, inputs and outputs are a less important afterthought that I'm not too quality concious about.

Bill: Do you have the schematics handy? A quick google search didn't give me much.

Just to clarify my situation at this point: I've already had the DAC boards made, which is simply a DIR9001 S/PDIF receiver feeding dual mono PCM1794A DACs with DATA, BCK, LRCK and master clock. That means any kind of reclocking has to happen in the S/PDIF domain, and that'll simply have to wait. The HT receiver I'm using at the moment just burned its line level outputs, so I gotta get this thing moving... And the only thing I'm missing to get that done at the moment are the S/PDIF inputs and outputs.

who says you have to use XLR for AES? I agree any number of other connectors are more suitable (lemo, hirose, RJ45, HDMI, some molex etc), but that doesnt make AES unworthy IMO, sure i2s is superior for audio, but once its out of the case it loses ground (but you know that)

10 channel dac woah!! i'm going for 6-8 channels for an XO, you? whats the end goal for all those channels an XO as wel?

For the DAC I'm using a DB25 breakout cable, but I want to use standard connectors for other I/O.

I2S in its common application is only good for short in-case connections, as you point out, but PWatts did some very promising work on LVDS buffers over CAT5 cable. He did some measurements on an Audio Precision and had almost perfect transmission over 10-20 meters. But like I said, that'll be later, if ever. He was working on some FPGA-based power DACs (digital amps) too, but that sorta died out.

Thanks, Bill. I've read the "Interfacing AES3 & S/PDIF" note on Rane, but your link is far more useful when it comes to optical interfacing. My brain must have had a case of bad input voltage itself when it thought I could feed a TORX177 straight into AES...

rfbrw: AES output voltage is 2.0 to 7.0 Vpp, but the minimum input voltage is 0.2 Vpp, as stated in the Rane note above. So AES inputs can take S/PDIF, but not necessarily the other way around.